In-game Browser and Support Tools in 5.3
Keep in mind that the browser is limited to the Battle.net support site only. You can't use it to visit the official forums or other websites.

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We’re adding a feature-limited web browser to World of Warcraft that will replace the in-game support system with a direct portal to the Battle.net Support site. Our aim is to give players in-game easy access to the site’s robust knowledge base and support contact system.

We’ve gone to great lengths to improve our website support systems and we want to offer access to all of its robust features in-game. The new browser will make it it easier to find information to help you resolve issues you’re experiencing or contact our representatives if you need a little extra help.

We will test this new feature in the 5.3 public test realm (PTR), and we’d like your assistance. Adding a web browser in-game is a new venture for us, and we need you to test it by searching through the support knowledge base and pages to make sure that it holds up in various hardware and network situations. It’s important to note that while we will be testing the functionality of this feature within the PTR, we are unable to process support ticket submissions.

We’d appreciate you keeping your feedback to this thread. We’ll be combing through it for your feedback and reports of any errors or issues you’re seeing.

Durumu Maze Improvements

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Late in the 5.2 PTR cycle we found that the Durumu smoke effects during the maze phase were causing debilitating performance issues for some users’ computer hardware configurations. We made a fairly last-minute change to the cloud effect that wasn’t quite what we had first planned on using, and as you’re likely aware, made traversing the maze more difficult than we had intended.

Last night we released a fast patch (you can read more on these small client patches here) in addition to a standard hotfix, which both work to improve the readability of the maze visual, as well as make the way the maze appears a bit more intuitive. These changes will be noted in a future hotfix blog update.

It being Tuesday and all, we’re eager to hear how these improvements impact your runs tonight and/or later this week. Let us know in the comments below!

Powershot now has a 25% decrease to damage, cast time, cooldown, and focus cost.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

Throne of Thunder

Durumu the Forgotten

Safe spots in the maze of Eye Sores now appear earlier, before the Disintegration Beam starts moving.

Adjustments were made to visual effects for Eye Sores to make it easier to see the maze.

Primordius

Mutated Abomination effect once again reduces his damage taken from non-Fully Mutated players by 75% on 10-player and 25-player Heroic difficulty only.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a crash that occurred when Gnomes or Taurens log into the game while riding a mount over water.

Incomplete LFR Runs

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

I've suggested the same thing the OP mentioned several times. "Prefer full run." It would serve no other function other than letting the queue system know who are 'wildcards' that are fine with fewer than all the bosses and who are not. That way, if there are two people right there back to back in the queue where one wants all the bosses and the other simply wants to be put further into the instance (like a valor farmer)... it knows the difference.
One thing to keep in mind is that the matchmaking system is already quite complex. It's already checking a lot of conditions, and prioritizing those conditions to get people into dungeons as quickly as possible.

The more you start to separate people by preference in the queue, even if the system is told to ignore the preference after X amount of time has been spent without being able to adequately fill (or backfill) a group, the more you dramatically inflate queue times for everyone. I totally agree that it can be annoying to often be placed in an in-progress dungeon, but the cons of many of the changes we've seen proposed by players would almost certainly outweigh that inconvenience.

We've also put in several measures to ease the burden a bit, without having to further complicate the matchmaking system and impact queue times. One thing I can appreciate about joining a raid in-progress is that I'm more likely to get the VP reward much more quickly. In situations where I care about the points more than the loot, I benefit from getting to the last boss sooner. And, if I do want loot and need the points, I can queue again and almost definitely get a fresh instance, kill the bosses I didn't yet, use bonus rolls for extra shots at the bosses I did kill (which will be even more effective in 5.3), and finish the dungeon for an extra VP bonus. If I decide I don't want to kill the same bosses again, someone else will have to suffer this same fate.

Keep in mind, too, that the need to backfill raids spikes with the release of each new Throne of Thunder wing. Success rates in the new content aren't as high (it's new!), and so you're seeing more people give up on groups, perpetuating the need to backfill raids. What we've tried to do is still make it worth the average person's time to finish the dungeon, while ensuring the matchmaking system tries much harder to give you a fresh instance if you requeue after not getting one the first time.

It's really about striking that balance between being accommodating, and being efficient. If a condition was set which allowed players to control whether they receive a fresh instance or not, wait times for everyone would be unacceptable, and potentially indefinite at odd hours of the day.

But for those of us that may be limited on time and need the loot that can drop our raid time is used for the convenience of the others in that group that needed a backfill and we have no shot at the things WE needed it for. Some of us do NOT have the time for double queues.

At least before it showed us if it was in progress and we could choose not to enter if we did not want to deal with that.
That was changed specifically because of the negative cascading effect it had. Not only was that a clunky, frustrating way of trying to force the queue to give you what you wanted (a fresh instance), it caused many raids to simply fall apart. Once people started leaving, and others refused to join, those left in the dungeon were out of luck. And you could say "sucks for them," but the ripple effect will just come back around to you. We saw it in action prior to patch 5.1, and it had a debilitating effect on the entire matchmaking system.

No where did I say 'full run only.' I said 'prefer full run.' There wouldn't be any 'only' about it. You don't get to make the choice. You simply let the system know what you would prefer. Nothing else would change. It would affect nothing other than letting the queue system know the difference between 'only wanting valor' and 'trying to do them all the first time.'
The point I was making in my first post was that this isn't going to yield the results you want. If you're simply asking for the queue to acknowledge your preference, it's probably not going to cater to it (if it doesn't now, why would it just because you checked a box?). But if you want the queue to separate players into pools based on a selected preference, every bit of calculation it makes before deciding when each individual has waited too long for their preference is going to inflate wait times exponentially for everyone.

Going to be simple with you Zarhym, The LFR finder system blows. The loot system is awful. My brother COMPLETED 5, that's right FIVE, unfinished LFRs for the SAME ONE. Only on his 6th try did he finally get a fresh run.

Waiting 30 mins AT BEST to an average of 60 mins a few times a week just to be able to down 1 boss is a joke and many people don't have time for sitting around. You said that people had priority for a "fresh run" after completing an unfinished one. So? where is that?
Like I said, the system tries to strike a balance between being accommodating, and being efficient. If you've completed an in-progress dungeon and requeue, the matchmaking system will prioritize you for a fresh run. This was happening very normally in LFR after being introduced in patch 5.1. That said, if the rate at which people are abandoning in-progress instances hits a high enough threshold, the matchmaking system isn't going to be able to both backfill raids AND create fresh ones in a reasonable timeframe. This is what you're seeing in the new dungeon wings as more groups struggle with less familiar content.

Patch 5.3 - Gamon
Everyone has a role to play in the upcoming war, even Gamon! He got a few upgrades in Patch 5.3, as he is now a level 90 Rare Elite with 39 million health.

What amuses me is Gamon is on par for the Horde side with a long running joke, just like Hogger is for the Alliance...

So I'm confused why there is any hate.

I used to play Alliance in vanilla/bc and the joke was always to form 40 man raids to take hogger at like lvl 1 *shrugs*

And naturally Blizzard key'd in on the joke and extended the life of Hogger to other stuff, like the dungeon.

those 40 man hogger raids were awesome. especially the times when it was 40 gnomes
I hope Gamon will get even more attention in future patches. After all, the guy must have so much anger stored up inside after getting his wallet stolen every 2 freaking minutes.

I really think Durumu was by far the funnest, most challenging boss. Sure, it took a little time for all of our 10 man to get down the maze, but we did it. Making this maze easier will just make the fight boring. I'm disappointed. :/ I like the challenge. Learn to move your camera angle...